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We also have a paid subscription blog for families interested in more detailed analysis of China's program. Due to the sensitive nature of these articles, they are available by subscription only. (http://www.research-china.org/blogs/index.htm)

Friday, October 24, 2014

The story started as a small notice on a remote Hunan government website detailing a lawsuit filed by families in a small Hunan village against the Family Planning Bureau in their area. While researching the Hunan scandal, we discovered this story of Family Planning confiscations in Gaoping Village, Shaoyang City. After writing about the story in 2006 in the context of the Hunan scandal, we were contacted to cooperate on a Dutch documentary in 2008 about twelve families that lost their children to Family Planning officials. These children were sent to the Shaoyang orphanage, renamed "Shao" and adopted internationally.

Now, the Chinese journalist that first broadcast the story inside China has published an in-depth book on the event, providing valuable background context to a story that has deep and profound implications to China's international adoption program. "The Orphans of Shao" "consists of case studies that exemplify more than 35-year long-lasting
policy in China, the One-Child Policy. Due to the effect that the
National Law has created, Mr. Pang exposed the corrupted adoption system
in China. The farmers in many villages are forced to fines that they
cannot afford to pay so the officials take their children away. The
officials then sell the children for a low price to government
orphanages. The orphanages then put these children up for international
adoptions and collect the high prices fees for these adoptions. The
international adoptions are usually in Europe and in the United States.
These families that adopted these children truly believe that the
children are orphans. After their children were kidnapped by the
officials, the parents embarked on a long and draining odyssey to
recover them. After searching fruitlessly for many years, the
heartbroken and desperate parents were on the verge of losing all hope."

These stories must be heard, as painful as they are for most to read. Purchase of the book benefits "Women's Rights in China," an NGO dedicated to prevent such stories from happening again.

Tuesday, October 07, 2014

After several years of researching and writing, my article "Open Secret" is available for free download. The article is also available in the current Cumberland Law Review 44.3 (2014): 355-422. This article presents the most in-depth research that has been done to date on China's adoption program, detailing episodes of ethical and legal breaches by orphanages, international response to these episodes, and the actions taken by the Chinese government to mitigate international fallout. It is quite simply the most detailed study ever undertaken.